Swap.com’s Swap4Schools program

Donate your books to classrooms that really want them.

I’m veering from my food topics this morning to talk about something else I’m passionate about – getting books into the hands of kids that need and want them. For the 7th year in a row, I’m co-charing the book fair at my son’s school in two weeks because I absolutely love helping kids find books that interest them.

One of the great things about the book fair is the teacher’s wish list program. The teachers get to preview what books are available at the fair and create a wish list for their classroom. On family night, parents can buy books from the teachers’ lists and donate them to the classroom. I’m fortunate that I live in a community where parents are extremely willing and have the means to do this. My son’s classroom is bursting with books.

Not all children go to schools where that’s the reality, though. Swap.com is helping to get books into all classrooms, and their new Swap4schools program can really help out all districts – particularly those that are hurting for books in the classrooms.

Here’s how it works. Teachers create an account on Swap.com and create a list of books they’d like for their classrooms. Swap.com users can elect to have the list of books they have to swap matched up with books that teachers want. Swap.com contacts users to let them know that a book they own is wanted in a classroom. The user can then donate that book to the classroom – anywhere in the country. Users pay postage, but Swap.com waves its fee when a book is donated.

I’ve already donated my first book to a 7th grade classroom in Illinois and earned my “Do-Gooder Badge” on Swap.com. It’s a small thing, but I like when I get to do these small things that might make a difference.

With school budgets being continuously slashed, teachers often spend a portion of their hard-earned, not-nearly-enough salaries on things for their classrooms. This is one way that you can help them keep their classroom libraries up-to-date.

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